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en-usEngadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronicsCopyright 2018 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/02/01/camelot-unchained-offers-a-status-update-for-the-end-of-january/https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/02/01/camelot-unchained-offers-a-status-update-for-the-end-of-january/https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/02/01/camelot-unchained-offers-a-status-update-for-the-end-of-january/#comments

So, is Camelot Unchained going to have those alpha servers ready in February? That's a great question! No, really, it is; the most recent official development update makes it clear that even the staff is unsure whether they'll be ready to go, as the team is currently a bit short on programmers and is trying to make do. A lot of bugs have been fixed up and several of the items on the game's update checklist have been crossed off, though, and the team is confident that any delays will be for less than six months.

The update post also contains new concept art for camouflaged archers as well as a mission statement regarding some of the systems that should be coming to the test version soon. If you can't wait to see the latest news on the game's progress, head along and check out the full update now.

Valiance Online will soon be available on Steam Greenlight, making it the first of the spiritual City of Heroes revivals to make it to that hallowed step. That's right, folks, we were the sacrifice required to save City of Heroes. We would have brought back Star Wars Galaxies too, but you know, it's almost February, and ewoks in cupid wings? No.

The developers of Das Talreleased a new video to explain the game's combat systems while simultaneously adding a variety of new systems for testers to, you know, test.

Jump on past the break for our list of other games in testing!
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albion-onlinealphaalphasbetabeta-testbeta-testingbetasbetawatchborderlandsborderlands-onlinebrianna-royce-betawatchcity-of-heroesclosed-betacohcrowfalldas-taleqneverquest-nextgame-testinglandmarklaunchlaunchesmassively metamassively-metamiscellaneousmmo industrynews itemsopen-betaotherlandroundupstar-wars-galaxiesswgtestingvaliance-onlineFri, 30 Jan 2015 20:00:00 -0500319|21137252https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01/23/betawatch-january-17-23-2015/https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01/23/betawatch-january-17-23-2015/https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01/23/betawatch-january-17-23-2015/#comments

This week, crowdfund legend Star Citizen laid out a testing timeline for the next two years; it plans to publish the "planetside/social" and FPS betas this spring, while alpha for the persistent universe portion of the game is expected before the end of 2015. What else is new in the world of MMO testing?

So what will the next year bring for Life is Feudal? Lots of things, since the game is still in its early access phase. But you don't have to take our vague and noncommittal words for it; you can just take a look at the game's official 2015 roadmap. The page outlines what will be coming to the game each month from here until September, along with progress bars to give hopeful players an idea of how far along the team has gotten on these features.

The team is going to be taking a break on all of this during their first trip to a convention, though; the staff from Bitbox will be in-person at PAX South, displaying at Booth 1261 for fans and those who have never heard of the game before. In other words, it should be a pretty busy 2015 for the game.

SOE confirmed this week that the beta for PlanetSide 2's PlayStation 4 edition will begin on January 20th. This month is shaping up to be a big one for the studio; its zombie MMO H1Z1 will kick off its own early access next week. What else is new in the world of MMO testing?

"Incredible! I didn't expect it to be identical to Glitch, which it is."

So sayeth one of Eleven's select few alpha testers, some of whom posted testimonials on the site about their experience. While a second tester cited "overwhelming" nostalgia, others were more critical of bugs, reloads, and generic visuals.

The fan remake of Glitch has more than doubled its alpha test pool, from 13 to 31 players, and continues to advance the project as a whole. "This has been a great success, with many improvements being made to help improve the stability and experience while some other work is ongoing in order to bring over some more features," the devs said.

For the first time in testing, The Repopulation didn't quite keep pace with its normal biweekly update schedule for the test client. Why, you ask, were the developers being such lazy bums? Because of the holidays? Or was it because the game was busy launching on Steam as an early access title, thus requiring extra work by the team to make sure that previous backers and newcomers alike were having fun? Mostly the latter, as it happens; not so much with the lazy bums.

Of course, a slight schedule slip doesn't change the fact that the team was hard at work on the game, with the biggest focus being bug fixes (as the new influx of players has resulted in many more bug reports). There are also improvements to the game's missions, with a focus on more challenging variations and the possibility of random fitting rewards from clearing them. Check out the full recap for a picture of everything that's been added or improved over the past month.
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above-and-beyondabove-and-beyond-technologiesalphaalphasbetabetasbugbug-fixesbugsearly-accessearly-access-titlegame mechanicsgame-mechanicsmonthly-recapnews itemspatchpatchesrecaprepopulationsandboxsci-fisteamtesttest-phasestestingthe repopulationthe-repopulationupdateupdatesMon, 05 Jan 2015 10:00:00 -0500319|21124531https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01/02/betawatch-december-27-2014-january-2-2015/https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01/02/betawatch-december-27-2014-january-2-2015/https://massively.joystiq.com/2015/01/02/betawatch-december-27-2014-january-2-2015/#comments

Pathfinder Online's early enrollment period opened for backers this week. If you're not a backer and still want to play, you can pony up $100 to join; that includes three months of access. Goblinworks' Ryan Dancey dropped by the Massively comments to assure readers that "from this point forward there are no planned server resets." Unplanned rollbacks and resets are a possibility, but accumulated XP "will never be revoked."

The hour has come at last! Yes, we said that yesterday, but this time we really mean it! Pathfinder Online has entered early enrollment as of today, allowing backers to jump in and play the game in its early state. There are even some new screenshots (exclusive to Massively!) to go along with this stage of the game's slow rollout; they're embedded in the gallery below.

A new blog entry has also been posted, stating the game's design philosophy once again and explaining how the earliest stage of deployment will work out. If you really want to get in but aren't already a backer from the game's second Kickstarter, access will set you back $100 with three months of included game time.

The hour has come at last! Almost. The hour of Pathfinder Online's early enrollment approaches swiftly with a scheduled start time of 1:00 p.m. EST on December 31st, assuming some horrible bug doesn't crop up between now and then. More posts will appear on the official site to detail how, exactly, one takes part in Early Enrollment if eligible; there will also be detailed information on how the game world moves and behaves so that no one is caught off-guard.

The last day of the alpha servers won't be quiet either; testers will be given access to developer powers, allowing them to make whatever ludicrously overpowered superheroes they want for fun. This starts today at 1:00 p.m. EST and runs until the servers go down for the last time before early enrollment. So have some fun today, and get ready to start in on the real thing tomorrow.

Alas, Transformers Universe, you were too beautiful for this world. Only you were not, in fact, too beautiful for anything; you were actually not beautiful enough to make it to launch. Yes, it happened a little while ago, but due to some holiday or another this has been a fairly slow week, and someone needs to shed a tear for the game. Or something like that.

Of course it hasn't kicked off just yet, as the developers behind the game are human beings who would like to actually spend some holiday time with their families. But it's coming soon. The change will mean that players who have alpha access via friends & family options or are normally slated to enter during open enrollment can no longer log in; so if you want to keep jumping into the game you may wish to upgrade your account. For those already happily waiting for early enrollment, nothing else remains to be done other than continuing to wait. Not much longer now.

Glitch might be gone, but thanks to the generosity of the dev team and the hard work of players, the game lives on in at least two incarnations, one of which, Eleven, entered alpha this week. What else is new in the realm of MMO testing?

Elite: Dangerous leaves gamma 2 and launches on Tuesday; no more wipes are planned.

It's been two years since Glitch shut down, and there are two possible responses to that. The first is to be sad that the MMO landscape lost an attractive, quirky, interesting little game. The second is to be quite happy because Eleven, the project that seeks to restore the original functionality of Glitch with a new team as a labor of love, is entering its alpha test phase. How awesome is that?

The first phase of testing is not a particularly large one: The amount of functional stuff in the game is tiny, and only 13 people are getting let in for test purposes. But it does mean that the project is moving along, and those lucky 13 people are going to get to play a game whose fans have been mourning ever since its shutdown. It's also a project done with Tiny Speck's blessing, ensuring that a successful alpha test now is the first step toward opening the doors of this world once more.

We've also purged the heck out of the Betawatch list after the cut thanks in large part to the eagle-eyed observations of Massively reader greaterdivinity. A number of games, including Archlord 2, Argo Online, Eclipse War Online, Face of Mankind, Legend of Silkroad, Legion of Heroes, Margonem, Strife, and Taikodom, have departed or moved around in our list due to changes in their open beta status (most of them soft launches, but some of them, like Argo, have simply disappeared from the internet... again). Many thanks to greaterdivinity!
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age-of-wulinalphaalphasarchlord-2argoargo-onlinebetabeta-testbeta-testingbetasbetawatchblack-desertbrianna-royce-betawatchcamelot-unchainedclosed-betaclosers-onlineconsolecrowdfundingeclipse-war-onlineelder-scrolls-onlineelite-dangerousface-of-mankindgame-testinglandmarklaunchlauncheslegend-of-silkroadlegion-of-heroesluna-moonlight-thievesmargonemmassively-metamiscellaneousmmo industrynews itemsopen-betaroundupshards-onlinesoul-master-onlinestrifetaikodomtestingthe-crewthe-repopulationtugFri, 05 Dec 2014 20:00:00 -0500319|21002780https://massively.joystiq.com/2014/12/04/camelot-unchained-moves-on-to-the-third-pre-alpha-test/https://massively.joystiq.com/2014/12/04/camelot-unchained-moves-on-to-the-third-pre-alpha-test/https://massively.joystiq.com/2014/12/04/camelot-unchained-moves-on-to-the-third-pre-alpha-test/#comments

The bad news of the most recent Camelot Unchained update is placed front and center of the latest development update: Some of the features once slated for inclusion in the second pre-alpha test have been kicked back to the third pre-alpha test. This also counts as good news, though; because of the small number of features remaining on that particular checklist and the progress already made on the third checklist, the team decided to just go ahead and shift the items to the new checklist whilst moving on to the third test. Got all that? Good.

Pre-alpha test #3 will contain the first pass of the game's building system, among other updates. While it has yet to be fully fleshed out, the core building blocks are working. So if you're a big enough backer to take part in these initial rounds of testing, you'll have the chance to start trying your hand at making new things when the test dates roll around.

Elite: Dangerous launched its final gamma build for backers this week; official launch for everyone else is December 16th. Latecomers can still play the single-player version through the Mercenary edition. What else is new in the world of MMO testing?

The build for Camelot Unchained is constantly improving in functionality. Dual-targeting is now implemented, allowing players to have separate friendly and hostile targets for various effects. The hotbar UI is improving. Auto-run is in the game. How do we know all of this? It's all in the latest newsletter from the development team, which discusses every aspect of the title from the stability and performance of the current build to future plans and technology integration.

Aside from the current state of the alpha testing build, the newsletter answers several community questions about possible new races and weaponry, shows off some of the armor designs that are being explored for mages, and talks about the game's reward structure. And even that isn't a full rundown of everything in the dispatch. If you're a fan of what's going on with Camelot Unchained, it might be best to just curl up with some holiday leftovers and read the full newsletter.